In this weekly web feature, St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly provide a quick, fun overview of the opera to be heard Saturday afternoon on HPM Classical and houstonpublicmedia.org.

In this week’s OCS, Houston Public Media’s St. John Flynn and Eric Skelly of the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra introduce you to Franz Lehár’s operetta The Merry Widow (Die lustige Witwe) which premiered in Vienna in 1905. Redolent of another famous Viennese operetta, Johann Strauss Jr.’s Die Fledermaus, The Merry Widow is a story of balls, flirtations, crude diplomacy and a fan. Tune in Saturday at noon to Houston Public Media Classical for Lyric Opera of Chicago’s broadcast of The Merry Widow...

In this week's OCS, Houston Public Media's St. John Flynn introduces excerpts from an interview with former Houston Symphony Music Director Hans Graf and Shepherd School of Music composition professor Anthony Brandt about the Houston Symphony's 2012 semi-staged production of Alban Berg's Wozzeck. Murder, madness, infidelity, suicide...this opera has it all!Tune in Saturday at noon to Houston Public Media's 88.7 HD2 to hear Lyric Opera of Chicago's broadcast of this 20th-century masterpiece.

In this week's OCS, Houston Public Media's St. John Flynn introduces excerpts from an interview with former Houston Symphony Music Director Hans Graf and Shepherd School of Music composition professor Anthony Brandt about the Houston Symphony's 2012 semi-staged production of Alban Berg's Wozzeck. Murder, madness, infidelity, suicide...this opera has it all!Tune in Saturday at noon to Houston Public Media's 88.7 HD2 to hear Lyric Opera of Chicago's broadcast of this 20th-century masterpiece.

In this week's OCS, Houston Public Media’s St. John Flynn and Eric Skelly of the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra discuss Gioachino Rossini’s 1817 comic masterpiece La Cenerentola. Based on the Charles Perrault fairy tale of Cinderella, it’s the story of the kind-hearted young girl, abused by her step-sisters, who meets, falls in love with, and marries the handsome prince. Yes, Cinders does go to the ball!Tune in to Classical 91.7 and HPM Classical Saturday at noon to hear Lyric Opera of Chica...

In this week’s OCS, Houston Public Media’s St. John Flynn and Eric Skelly of ROCO look at the seemingly recent phenomenon of turning great books into operas (think Moby Dick, Little Women, Thérèse Raquin, and Cold Sassy Tree to name just a few). As they point out, while many of the most successful late 20th- and early 21st-century operas may derive from well-known books, this is by no means something new. In fact, it would be difficult to find many operas that do NOT have literary antece...

In this OCS Houston Public Media’s St. John Flynn and Eric Skelly of the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra give a brief introduction to one of Mozart’s greatest creations. Subtitled The Mad Day, The Marriage of Figaro shows the craziness that ensues when the “right of the lord” is not the opposite of the “left of the lord”!Le Nozze di Figaro, to give it its Italian title, was the first of the three great collaborations between Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. Based on the French play by Bea...